Power Grab - Jason Chaffetz Page 0,16

house parties where volunteers made 2.14 million calls and recruited over 90,000 volunteers for Obama in swing states. Additionally, they report registering more than 230,000 new voters in thirteen battleground states, an effort that they say helped to win many states and turned North Carolina Blue for the first time since Jimmy Carter’s election in 1976.

With each election cycle, the claims grow bigger. In 2012, they targeted the western swing states of Nevada and Colorado and ran get-out-the-vote (GOTV) efforts in ten states. In 2014 they knocked on more than 200,000 doors in states with key Senate races with a commitment to “mobilizing the grassroots base of the progressive movement.”

This is an explicitly political organization.

So what service do they provide to 501(c)(3) charities? According to the 990 forms of three major nonprofits, Grassroots Campaigns has earned more than $69 million over the six-year period for which data is available, from just three charities: Planned Parenthood, the Southern Poverty Law Center, and the Nature Conservancy. Not just the advocacy arm of these organizations, but the charity arm. A visit to the Grassroots Campaigns website shows a much longer client list. On the clients page, we see some familiar names:

Current and Former Clients of Grassroots Campaigns Inc.

America Votes

American Civil Liberties Union

Amnesty International USA

CA League of Conservation Voters

Center for American Progress

Colorado State Democratic Party

College Matters

Common Cause

Conservation Law Foundation

D.C. Public Schools

DCCC [Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee]

Democratic National Committee

Doctors Without Borders

Equality California

Equality Maine

Everytown for Gun Safety

Freedom to Marry

League of Conservation Voters

Media Matters

MoveOn Political Action

Nevada State Democratic Party

Obama for America

Oxfam America

Pennsylvania Coordinated Campaign

People for the American Way

Plan International USA

Planned Parenthood of NYC

Repower America

Respect ABQ Women

Sierra Club

Southern Poverty Law Center

Media Fund

Nature Conservancy

UNICEF

VoteVets Political Action

WA State Coordinated Campaign

WETA

What kind of work do these nonprofits need from a political canvassing organization? Some of it is consulting. It’s unclear what consulting a for-profit political canvassing organization provides to 501(c)(3) charities. But much of the work Grassroots Campaigns is paid to do is what they’re calling fund-raising. It involves hiring entry-level staff to knock on doors or man tables at public events asking people to donate to the nonprofit.

If Grassroots Campaigns fund-raisers are working for Planned Parenthood, they show up at the door in a Planned Parenthood T-shirt asking you to donate to Planned Parenthood. You might naturally assume that the money you contribute will be used to do the work of the organization to which you donated—funding abortions, for example. You would be wrong about that. Because at the end of the day, Grassroots Campaigns is paid significantly more money than it raises for its nonprofit clients.

Ultimately, that donation results in a net loss to the charity, not a net gain. It’s right there in the 990 forms filed with the IRS. That means your donation is funding Grassroots Campaigns, not Planned Parenthood, the Southern Poverty Law Center, the Nature Conservancy, or any other client engaged in this sleight of hand.

Planned Parenthood Federation has been engaged in this scheme since 2009. Notably, only the charity side of Planned Parenthood engages with Grassroots Campaigns, Inc. Though the social welfare, or 501(c)(4), entities also do fund-raising, they don’t use this particular company. Why? Could it be that they don’t actually hire Grassroots Campaigns for the fund-raising? Is it just a scheme to direct charity funds to partisan political activities?

Planned Parenthood Federation Losses to Grassroots Campaigns Inc.

Amount Fund-Raised

Amount Charged by Grassroots

Loss by PPF

2016

$2,686,919.00

$4,599,074.00

$(1,912,155.00)

2015

$1,954,196.00

$3,400,000.00

$(1,445,804.00)

2014

$909,925.00

$2,273,485.00

$(1,363,560.00)

2013

$1,049,817.00

$2,261,872.00

$(1,212,055.00)

2012

$1,849,612.00

$3,493,461.00

$(1,643,849.00)

2011

$1,569,663.00

$3,776,470.00

$(2,206,807.00)

2010

$902,515.00

$2,420,841.00

$(1,518,326.00)

2009

$97,079.00

$370,874.00

$(273,795.00)

$11,019,726.00

$22,596,077.00

$(11,576,351.00)

Source: 990 tax filings

Let’s take a look at the success of Grassroots Campaigns Inc. in fund-raising for Planned Parenthood Federation. The chart above shows Grassroots Campaigns hasn’t come close to raising the amount of money Planned Parenthood is paying them. In fact, in the eight years for which I was able to see records, Planned Parenthood’s 501(c)(3) charity has paid out more than $11.5 million to the canvassing organization above and beyond the amounts they have received for fund-raising.

To a nonprofit auditor, these numbers would make no sense. In the real world, if a nonprofit pays a fund-raiser, that fund-raiser had better raise at least enough to cover the cost of the contract. In the real world, if a fund-raiser costs more than the amount raised, the nonprofit would hire someone else the following year. But Planned Parenthood doesn’t. Note that the amounts fund-raised by Grassroots Campaigns each year (column two) are consistently exceeded by the amounts charged for fund-raising (column three). Normally, after a single year of failing to raise the amount of the fee, we would expect a nonprofit to fire the fund-raiser and hire someone who can raise at